Once upon a time a man encountered a miracle plant in a desert. It was on fire, but not burned up. His attention secured, God spoke to him from the bush and called him to service. Moses, who lived for himself, and had killed a man, became one of God’s great prophets. Jesus uses this story to support his argument about resurrection: “And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
“And the fact that the dead are raised.” We spoke yesterday about the resurrection life running through us. So why do so many people appear so deadened? Why is it so hard to hope? Why do we give death so much power to set our agendas?
One Sunday morning my radio came on and I woke to Mountain Stage, a live folk music show. A singer* was doing a long intro about a time he paid for a gorgeous plant in Mexico and was handed a shriveled, dried up ball. Too embarrassed to protest, he and his wife slunk away, as he whispered, “We just paid $5 for a dead plant!” Somehow, in their car, a cup of ice melted and somehow the plant ended up in the run-off. Later that day, they came back to the car to discover a completely vital and beautiful plant. “Wow!” he said. “We just paid $5 for a miracle plant!”
That miraculous desert plant, they learned, is called a Resurrection Plant, for obvious reasons. Also known as Rose of Jericho, it is a lycopod that grows in desert regions in the Southwest and Latin America, usually surrounded by cacti and such. It shouldn’t be able to survive such dry conditions, but the Resurrection Plant has an adaptive trick:
When the soil is moist after infrequent rains, a Resurrection Plant absorbs water and grows rapidly, producing a flat rosette of scaly stems up to one foot across. As the soil dries, it cannot store water like its succulent neighbors, so it folds up its stems into a tight ball as it desiccates and goes into a state of dormancy. The folded plant has a limited surface area, and what little internal moisture is present is conserved. All metabolic functions are reduced to a bare minimum and it appears to be dead. The plant can remain in this dormant condition for years. When the rains return, the plant's cells rehydrate. The stems unfold, metabolism increases, and growth resumes.
What if that were the case for all the people and things we think are walking dead? People and situations we’ve given up on because we see no life in them? What if that were true for parts of ourselves, our dead or dormant hopes, joys, dreams, gifts? What about the places we’ve been hurt and have allowed to close into a tight ball instead of heal?
Today in prayer think about people or situations you think resemble that plant. Read through the description above slowly and see where you connect with it. Does it inspire you to pray for anyone, or for yourself? Does it encourage you to believe? I felt sure I was led to hear that story that week.
We can wait a long time for water - and it's already been given to us, living, restoring water – signified in our baptisms, in the power of the Holy Spirit coursing through us. We can let that water reach the dead-seeming places in us. And we can consciously bear that water to the people and places around us. These plants look really, really dead! But death does not have the last word on them. Nor on us. Nor do disappointment, degradation, depression or despair.
I call this “Water Daily.” I know daily is way too frequent for some plants, maybe some people. The Resurrection Plant reminds us that it’s never too late to pour on the water and watch someone come back to life.
*Google research on the plant name and Mountain Stage schedule finally yielded the name of the folk singer… I’m pretty sure it was Drew Kennedy, and the song is “Rose of Jericho.” Iron and Wine also has a song called “Resurrection Fern” – that plant is just too good a metaphor to pass up!'
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